Decade Rewind: The Best Movies of 2011

As the 2010’s have officially come to an end, I will be looking back at each cinematic year to give a personal decade retrospective of the best movies and performances of each year. I will break down my Top 10 movies of each year, along with my favorite performances from that year. I will also be listing my favorite’s from each genre, like Best Animated Movie and Best Action Movie, as well as best of the technical aspects, like Best Cinematography and Best Screenplay. This will all culminate into my picks for the best movies and performances of the decade.

*Rankings of movies and performances are numbered from 1-5, with 1 being the best movie/performance.

*Gifs for each category are not specifically of the “winners” of each category, just one of the nominees.

THE YEAR: 2011

2011 was one of the more unique years of this decade and one that, on a personal level, was really quite formative. This was the year where I first began to form a perspective and opinion on film and actually started doing small reviews. It was my first year attending the Sundance Film Festival, which exposed me to a whole new world of films, filmmakers, filmmaking, and just cinema in general. I also saw over 100 films that year, the first time I ever broke the century mark, which, in a time where there was no MoviePass or AMC A-List and you had to pay full-price for movie tickets, this was quite an expensive feat, but an important one.

2011 gave us a murderers row of big time directors with films, like Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Alexander Payne, but it was also a great year for up-and-coming directors, like Bennett Miller, Nicolas Winding Refn, and Gavin O’Connor, as well as a spectacular year for franchises and sequels, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe getting in full swing with Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor, the Fast and Furious franchise and Mission: Impossible franchise hitting new peaks, and the finale of Harry Potter. Here were my picks for the best movies and performances of 2011.